Traces the life of the thirty-fourth president, from his childhood in Kansas, through his military career, to his terms as president and his efforts to preserve American strength during the start of the Cold War.

Summary

Before serving two terms as President, Dwight D. Eisenhower had led the U.S. army to victory in Europe in World War II. A career army officer and a graduate of West Point, he was commander of NATO after World War II. During Eisenhower's Republican administration, the Korean War war ended, and McCarthyism threatened civil liberties. The Supreme Court ruled against school segregation and Eisenhower called in the federal troops to enforce integration at the Little Rock, Arksansas, high school. A soldier who believed in keeping the peace, he warned against the dangers of the military-industrial complex in his farewell address to the nation.